Footsie
by kimmiesjoy
Summary: Post Cops and Robbers. The first time her foot grazes his ankle beneath the table he passes it off as accidental.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** A three shot to get me through this last little bit of hiatus, dedicated to the girls who did the same for me all summer.

For Jessie, Indie and Sandra.

* * *

><p>The first time her foot grazes his ankle beneath the table he passes it off as accidental.<p>

The food is good, hot, spicy and delicious. Warming, soothing even and it's a wonderful surprise given that his mother is the architect of tonights meal.

There is something about good food with family that will heal the worst of days and enhance the best, Castle feels as though this dinner is serving to do both things at once and he takes his place at the head of the table with pride, feeling blessed.

The company is perhaps even better than the food and, for once, after a life or death experience, he can drink in the sight of Kate Beckett as much as he wants. There is no twist in his gut or gnawing panic at the back of his mind, rather than worrying about her at home, alone, he gets to watch her match wits with his mother, trade dishes and laughter with his daughter.

So, aside from the whole almost shot and blown up in a bank robbery thing, it's a pretty awesome day.

* * *

><p>The first time it happens, it's totally passable as innocent, totally not something that makes him freeze in place and stare.<p>

He tops off her glass, and refills his own, Martha's too and smiles as Beckett sips. She hums her appreciation, looks down deep into the burgundy liquid and inhales the scent of the wine.

She savors it.

Castle makes a mental note of the label, discreetly pleased he has at least another bottle on the rack, glad she's enjoying it.

Her shoe collides with his as he sets the bottle down, almost as though she's vying for his attention, unaware she already holds it. He freezes, fingers poised before him wondering if maybe she wants to share a little eye contact at something witty or ridiculous said by his family. Did he miss part of the conversation?

It's just the nudge of the toe of her boot into the side of his foot. It's nothing more than a barely restrained kick. Yet, when he takes her in, shifts his gaze from admiration to intent, her eyes are down on her plate as though she can't bring herself to look up and have him see whatever is on her mind.

She heaps rice on to a fork with a sardonic smile, lips tilting sweetly in a way that tells him at home she'd no doubt be using chopsticks.

He has some in a drawer, of course. Multi coloured and traditional, joined for ease of use for little fingers when his daughter was small and replaced by the grown up version she insisted upon before she even hit double digits.

He should offer to get them, should be the genial host, but her foot is sliding the length of his and Castle finds there's nothing in the world that could drag him away from the table and the woman at his side.

He lets it go, dives back into the food and smiles, pleased that she's here. Joining in, part of the family and sipping her wine with a warm, lingering hum. After a few seconds she retreats, foot removed from his, and it's as though it never happened at all.

* * *

><p>His mother and daughter latch on to their conversation about saved lives, though neither seem to have kept count. Which, seriously? He can't have been the only one doing that, no matter how shocked - yet equally delighted - Beckett sounded when she found out.<p>

Castle finds himself re-telling the stories, from champagne cork to bank hold-up, only this time he has Beckett chiming in, shaking her head when he exaggerates. Or downright lies.

"He looked."

"I did not."

"He did." Beckett nods at his mother and daughter, laughing, ignoring him with a wave of her hand and talking about him as though he's not really there, "My apartment exploded and he kicked down the door and he looked!"

"You were in the bathtub."

"Mmhmm," it sounds more like _Aha!_ She responds as though he's made her point all by himself, reaches for the wine, sips the last remnants from her glass and tilts it to him for a refill.

She's laughing, expectant in her desire and impatient for whatever his response may be.

Castle jumps up for another bottle, de-corks it and pours all the while shaking his head. She thinks she's so clever.

"I gave you my coat when you were naked and turned my back, I didn't peak once."

"Keep telling yourself that, Castle."

* * *

><p>"Russian?" Alexis laughs. "I remember that one, undercover?"<p>

"Poker game." They say at the same time and giggles flood the table.

All eyes fall on Beckett as she struggles not to let the laughter get the best of her, waving a hand over her mouth to shoo the sound away, "Sorry, I just half expected Ryan to chime in and ask 'do you guys practice this when we're not around'."

She mimics his voice, low down and cutesy so very _honeymilk gone bad_ that Castle's done for, following her over the edge into laughter.

"Do the two of you do _that_ often?" Martha inquires.

They both snort, eyes catching, a synchronized head bob giving way perfectly to their joint response of "yeah,".

* * *

><p>Though they spark through conversation, bouncing off one another in that specific way that makes his heart pitter-patter against his ribs, making a break for freedom, his mind keeps flashing back to the feel of her foot against his own. Was it a sign or an accident? A caress or a careless kick?<p>

He passes it off as trying to remember facts about their cases, details lost over the years that she recalls with startling clarity.

How many gunshots she fired in the freezer before he made her stop for fear of accidental ricochet. That it was a hall of mirrors in a club and there was in fact no clown no matter how much more interesting it might make the story. That yes, she did tackle him to save him from Lockwood and yes, she did really bring him coffee and hold his hand after their first encounter with 3XK.

She entertains Martha and Alexis with her own version of events and he keeps his Castley-ways to himself. It's good really, allowing his mind to be it's own partner in theory, he can ponder as much as he likes the logistics of their body placement and just how _flexible_ those legs of hers are to deliberately graze him the way she did. It's good, because right now he's half way to convincing himself it wasn't an accident.

It happens again, and he could dance, and the second time is just as innocent, if not a little further reaching. But twice is less about coincidence and more about patterns of behavior and his mind throws up one question that makes his blood surge hotly through his system.

Is it possible Kate Beckett likes to play footsie?


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N:** Thank you for reading!

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><p>The toe of her shoe grazes his shin, somehow slips behind his leg and climbs the back of his calf chasing goosebumps up his spine, <em>just<em> as he sips at his drink.

Castle swallows wrong, the wine spurting down his throat, catching his tonsils and flicking out into his lungs. Her touch alone is enough of a shock that he coughs, starts in surprise but add in the wine and he loses all ability to be suave, and dribbles from the corner of his mouth.

_Smooth!_

Beckett drops her head, fingers touching her own face as if countering his messy mistake. She covers her own mouth, hiding her expression.

Clearing her throat she reaches, lifting a napkin to her lips in a barely-there swipe, tossing the cloth in his direction, eyes alight with something. Some indefinable thing that paints her face with lightness, her smile wide when she looks at him.

"Manners, Castle," she scolds.

The cloth hits him in the face.

He's still snorting past the lungful of liquid and unable to place blame right in her lap where it belongs for her crafty underhand (and under table) attack.

Indignant in his embarrassment he flushes, and, just as he presses his mouth to the napkin that grazed her own, their eyes lock.

It's immediate, surprising, almost as bad as coughing past his last mouthful of that gorgeous new red wine, and yet _more_ intense. An intimate flare of electricity bounces between them, charged and wanting, it finds a home in the way they stare. It finds a home in the way they _always_ look at each other, in that back and forth eruption of unspoken emotion.

From the sultry fall of wavy hair by her ears, to the heavy sweep of lashes that do nothing to hide her expression, Castle can feel it _crackle_ between them.

His mouth closes, the cough dying off to a deep, stuttered inhalation and his lips glance the silken cloth. There is imagined warmth in the material at his lips and he allows himself to believe it's the lingering remnants of her breath. The possibility of a kiss trapped there in a napkin.

One she threw his way.

It's too much with her right there, watching every movement, wetting her lips, waiting for his comeback.

He's got _nothing_.

The faint aroma of her perfume assails his senses, her foot slides, _higher_, and his eyes flutter closed.

If his hair doesn't stand on end it's only because his entire system is focused on two things. The first being the brush of her foot low over his achilles and the second not throwing himself across the table and kissing her breathless.

There is laughter and he opens his eyes, smiles through it as best he can, covers his day dreaming with a few deep breaths.

His daughter echoes Beckett's sentiment, mumbling about how embarrassingly juvenile her father's behavior at the table is. Castle doesn't comment, allows her dented heart to shield itself in whatever way it needs, choosing to poke his tongue out at her instead.

She doesn't laugh, his _too adult for her own good_ daughter, but she does smile, keeps eating, joins in. It's enough to set _his_ heart at ease.

Martha remains silent through some unknown grace of god, perhaps, again, it's the magic of the wine. He really should invest in a few more bottles of that stuff. Maybe a case or two given the way _everyone _is responding to it.

His mother doesn't speak, but the burn of her eyes on his skin is almost as intense as Beckett's. She reads him better than anyone.

A glance in her direction earns him a smile, a wide toothy grin of glee because he's being teased and taunted and he and Beckett are playing off of one another in the way that he's _tried_ a thousand times to explain and never quite gotten right. You have to see it to believe it, believe _in_ it, and now she has.

She gives him a look. A nod, a brief if theatrical flick of her eyes in Beckett's direction.

She approves!

His mom approves of the vibrant, kind and reserved, woman sitting at the table, poking at his own ability to laugh at himself. Something inside him comes to life at that, equally terrified and delighted by what it means.

His detective however stays silent. Thoroughly engrossed in her china patterns, idly swirly her cutlery through the noodles, chewing - though more on her lip than the food before her - and trailing one finger down the long stem of her wine glass.

She sighs.

And her foot's gone just as quickly as it came.

* * *

><p>Castle narrows his eyes, tries to work out exactly what is afoot here (so to speak) and raises the food to his lips with a great deal of trepidation.<p>

After-all snorting wine is ungentlemanly but choking on his food and dying before he gets to kiss her (again) would be downright tragic.

* * *

><p>They proceed through the main course with laughter and remembrance.<p>

"Chuck Norris?" Alexis eyes her father in disbelief. "Really?"

"What else was I supposed to call him?" Beckett laughs, but her eyes fall on him softly, "He just kept hitting the guy, and I had to re-wrap his hands because he kept fiddling with the bandages."

"He was going to shoot you." Castle defends, his voice a little tighter than it should be, he accidentally breaks the mood and could kick himself for it.

Beckett sighs, her smile falling away. Swallowing hard, fist to the very center of her chest, she taps the back of his hand with one finger before nudging it firmly towards his glass. She clinks the side of his with the side of her own and offers up a toast.

His mother and daughter avert their eyes, though her words are loud enough for them all to hear.

"To what we do;" she clinks his glass, "partner!"

* * *

><p>The mood mellows a little as they eat. The duck is crispy and succulent and though he teases his mother for certain lacking fundamentals when it comes to cooking, in areas such as <em>this<em> she excels.

Castle's glad he gets to share it, share the enormity and the silly incidentals of his family with her.

Beckett shifts in her seat, rolls her shoulders and mutters something under her breath about backache and uncomfortable negotiating chairs.

He knows this day has taken a toll on her that perhaps even she hasn't fully grasped. Though the memory of the look she gave him, hands fisted in his shirt on the cold floor of the bank, belays that thought immediately.

They're both startlingly aware of what there is to be lost. What lies between them, untouched, untamed. Unspoken.

Her fingers flutter down her side and she moves as though there's an ache in her ribs, maybe the scar, maybe not. Her fingers clench and unfurl against her shirt and she shifts seeking relief.

Castle watches her move and slowly lose the stress and strain that has held her up, held her _together_ for most of the evening. She wriggles, stamps her feet a little to get comfy, leaning into the elbows she throws out unapologetically onto the table.

She catches him staring, grins at him over the palm of her hand, fingers laced through the hair that falls across her cheek.

Caught up, more than a little confused, Castle smiles back.

Silence stretches as they share the food, dishes passing back and forth with ease.

"I really don't think you'll like it." Beckett teases, pulling a bowl towards herself, scooping out a second spoonful of the spicy vegetables before he's even had one. She pretends to keep it for herself, setting the dish just out of his reach.

"So, your plan is to eat it all so I don't have to suffer?"

She nods around a mouthful of something that makes her moan. Castle's suddenly grateful he splurged a little when it came to his cutlery. If he'd been frugal the force of his grip, enticed and multiplied by the sounds she makes, would have surely bent the knife in half.

* * *

><p>They move through dinner at a leisurely pace that has him half convinced he imagined her touches, but every so often when he looks up her eyes are on him.<p>

She'll smile and her expression will remain soft, tender even. It's almost the look she gave him in the bank, almost a declaration of intent in those wide eyes and silent smiles, only now less fraught. Less flooded with relief.

At those moments, when their eyes catch across his table, he can't bring himself to pretend he didn't feel her touch him. At those moments it takes everything in him not to reach out and claim her hand.

She watches him and he knows it. Follows the movement of his fork and spoon from dishes she has already sampled. She stares with curiosity, leans closer and tracks the movement of cutlery from his table to his lips and Castle resists all urges to comment.

Until he can't.

"Something you want, detective?" he ponders suggestively, thrusting yet another side dish in her direction so she's forced to grab for it.

Their fingers brush and Beckett startles out of her reverie.

She seeks out his eyes and finds the entire table watching her. A laugh accompanies the faint blush to her cheeks and it holds his attention longer than it should in front of his family.

She blinks, presses her lips together and sighs out her response. "Yes."

The _third_ time she touches him there is no mistaking it at all.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N:** It's so close! I'm so excited! Thank you for reading and reviewing and playing along. See you on the other side!

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><p>Her toes curl at the hemline of his pants.<p>

Toes!

No longer a thick shield of leather between their touch, it's just her foot and the ridiculous softness of the sock barely covering her. The heat of her skin leaches through and scalds where they collide.

His eyes dart to hers, roam her face, try to find logic or knowledge in the stroke of her foot and her answer to his question.

_Yes,_ there is something she wants. His heart leaps with hope that it's what he thinks it is.

"How many times is it now, Castle?" Beckett asks, her eyes burnished bronze flirting out across the table, candle light illuminating her pupils. The golden glow from the low light casts her in a mix of gloss and shadow, flickering amusement dancing in every look she throws his way.

She's taken her shoes off through some form of mystical flexibility that turns his mouth dry. If she can do that with her feet and toes, what on earth can she do with those endless legs and dangerous fingers?

She's flushed and warm, and cradling her wine glass to her chest, waiting for him as she dangles the leading question _right there_ to catch his mother's flare for drama and his daughter's genetic curiosity.

Her foot drags up the length of his shin bone, pad a heated weight to his kneecap before it disappears once more.

He almost chokes on the number _three_ before he even realizes she doesn't want them informed of how many times she's engaged in footsie with him beneath the table.

Castle coughs, feels his face redden and burn with inhaled breath and focused attention, but luckily enough the number stays trapped on the tip of his tongue. He shifts in his seat and wriggles not to dislodge her so much as to kick start his brain.

Her toes ripple like drumming fingers, the pressured and pinpointed movement of each of his detective's sock clad little piggies _deliberate_ and _decisive_.

All of the women in his life have turned eager eyes on him for the answer to Beckett's question just as her foot runs across the width of his shoe, dexterous toes toying with his laces and his mind turns to mush.

It's blank. _Utterly_ blank.

"Eight." He blurts,shaking his head and swallowing, "Beckett saved my life eight times."

"Really, Richard?" Martha's eyes widen, "Eight times? That seems like an awful lot of danger and mischief to find ones self in. Even for you."

Beckett laughs and begins flexing her toes at the hem draping around his lower leg.

He should have guessed from her change in posture _when_ she lost the shoes, because now she's more slumped in and relaxed looking, less strained. She's made herself as at home at his table as her toes have made themselves with the short hairs that dance on his calf.

She strokes him back and forth, the dancing movement of her foot hypnotizing in its gentleness. Another layer of her personality and character unfolding before him.

Her eyes sparkle and their elbows brush when she turns in her seat to face him. The tips of her toes dart out and drag down his sock.

"_Today_ makes eight." Beckett elaborates, partners in deception as she covers for his lack of verbosity with her own gentle voice. She smiles softly at his mother and daughter, all the while her evil, scheming toes find a way to worm _in_ and _under_, surging _up_ his leg.

He shivers. Stunned.

"You owe me one." He finally comments, his voice coming from nowhere as his body dances in reaction to the smooth press of her foot, the way she arches and uses her heel to draw his leg closer and finally in between her own.

His entire being is honing in on the graze of her sole when the nails of her toes press through the sock and scrape about his ankle bone.

Crushing warmth surrounds him. She latches on, touches, strokes and clings, molten lava flaring up his legs.

She catches his eyes, locks both ankles behind his and hums, "Maybe we should call it even."

"Hear, hear." Martha salutes, raising her glass when they laugh, "To life, with a little less _life-and-death_."

* * *

><p>They're pulled apart at the call for dessert and their connection remains unsevered, with Castle abjectly refuses to move until she gives him an encouraging little kick under the table.<p>

"Yes, I want dessert," she huffs when he dares to suggest otherwise. When he eventually moves he does it slowly, he dawdles in protest glad she knows why even if the other two are oblivious. They've not caught wind of what is occurring below the wooden surface and he's okay with it.

In fact that's fine.

He smiles, but he can't help his reluctance to leave her, nor his preference for Beckett's touch over a bowl full of ice cream.

Even if it is really _good_ ice cream.

* * *

><p>Dinner ends after coffee with Alexis and Martha disposing of their dishes and making a hasty retreat.<p>

Somewhere between them hugging her goodbye and him clearing the table, Beckett's shoes find their way back onto her feet leaving Castle once again wondering if he imagined the entire thing.

His skin still tingles though and when he glances down he notices that his pant leg has somehow tucked itself into his sock. He smiles, relieved.

His imagination is _good_, but it's not _that_ good!

They find themselves in companionable conversation weaving their way closer to the door. She's heading out, ready to leave and all those brief _what if's_ and _almosts_ and _tell me you need mes_ are reaching a mounting crescendo within him.

He darts forward as she swings the door open, grasping her elbow to stop her. She turns as he leans in, pressing warm lips to her cheek.

Her breath catches as he kisses her goodbye and she ducks her head, but not before he sees her smile. Not before he sees the way she curls her lips - and looks at him with _maybes_ and _someday_ and _remind me why not right now_ right there in her dark, wistful gaze.

It catches him hard in the gut.

"Thank you for saving my life," Castle whispers and strokes a hand down her arm, adjusting her sleeve when he'd really rather dip underneath and take her hand.

"I told you there was no need." She's blushing, but braving it out and meeting his eyes, "Partners," her voice is low, quiet, she shrugs as though it's nothing.

It's so much more than that and she knows it.

Time seems to spin away from them as they stand still, his fingers barely a heartbeats distance from her own.

It stretches out and slips through their fingers as they linger with the door open and her ability to leave him stuck somewhere about her feet.

Feet that spent the evening flirting with his leg.

"Then, thank you for playing footsie with me," he smiles widely, not letting her escape this one or get away with it going unspoken.

He laughs when she does. Caught up in the melodic burst of mischievous glee that she can't even trap back behind the fingers that glance her lips.

"Oh, well for that you're welcome." She smiles too, pleased with herself. Warmth rushes through her and she rises up onto her toes, suddenly daring.

It's intoxicating, Castle freezes, watching her coming in close.

She grips his shoulder, strokes her thumb past his ear and kisses his cheek. Her breath lingers a second longer than can pass for friendship, her fingertips at his jaw a caress for a lovers farewell and nothing else.

Nothing at all innocent.

She sighs, still smiling though, and steps back.

"Goodnight." He blurts it out, still stunned, still delighted, too slow to reach out and grab her and pull her back for a proper kiss. Instead his fingers touch the places hers just vacated, Castle skims his own skin as if to trap the ghost of her touch against his flesh for eternity.

She turns on her heel as she walks away, shaking her head, reprimanding, teasing, "Until _tomorrow_, Castle," and she laughs. Bouncing toward the elevator her fingers fly to her lips as if only just realizing she kissed him.

Her steps are light, lighter than they have been for months and her smile will follow him to sleep, but the thing that will keep him awake tonight won't be the look on her face when she checked he was okay, her fingers tight in his shirt.

It won't be his mother or daughter or trapped in a bank, it won't be Morse code being kissed by her at the door.

The thing that will keep him awake 'til dawn creeps across the sky is the remembrance of dinner, of laughter and light and the soft curling touch of her toes as they crept up his leg.

And two little tidbits of information will keep the smile on his face, tonight and more nights hereafter, even when his eyelids rebel and the yawns threaten to engulf him.

They will be the memories of the softness and warmth of her skin brushing his beneath the table, and the secret, lovely knowledge that kick-ass Kate Beckett likes to play footsie.


End file.
